Ethnic cleansing in the areas of Bodo concentration in Assam, India using GIS technique

Mahasweta Satpati, North-Eastern Hill University

Internal migration causing redistribution of population in ethnically sensitive areas in India attracts scholarly attention owing to its serious social as well as political implications. The problem is more significant in areas where diverse ethnic groups compete for the resource base. The present paper aims at getting an insight into the changing pattern of ethnic distribution in the Brahmaputra valley with a particular emphasis on the Bodo community which is demanding a separate state in Indian Union on the perceived threat to its ethnic identity following the influx of people of non-Bodo origin into its traditional homeland. The demand more often than not has been violent in nature forcing large-scale intra-regional transfer of people. Problem has been investigated with the help of census data for 945 villages using GIS. This has resulted in a spatial restructuring in the distribution of diverse ethnic groups in a manner akin to ‘ethnic cleansing’.